One of the more fascinating bits of history she has unearthed is in a chapter titled "Eating Your Pants: Is Mars Worth It?" where Roach recounts how scientists in the 1960s tried to wrap their heads around the problem of creating a space diet aboard a future manned mission to Mars that could last for up to three years.

In particular, she revisits the ideas of D.L. Worf, a scientist with the Martin Marietta Company, who proposed the ultimate in recycling: crafting parts of the spacecraft out of edible materials so that they could be eaten by astronauts on their way back to Earth.

As they toasted one another with their drinking bags, American astronaut Michael Barratt marveled, "The taste
is great." When Russian
astronaut Gennady Padalka gulped a drop of the water that
floated in front of him, Barratt added that the water formerly known as pee was "worth chasing."